Sunday, January 02, 2011

What a way to start off the New Year. This is the type of story that Alfred Hitchcock would have loved, except that it's not fiction. The next time you're going through the town of Beebe, Arkansas, perhaps it would be a good idea not to look up. Or maybe wear a hard hat.

Seems that in excess of 1,000 - wait for it - black birds suddenly and without any prior warning, dropped out of the night sky. Imagine being out on an evening stroll and suddenly being beaned by a blackbird (say that a dozen times fast).

"Excuse me (insert name of person accompanying you on a walk) blank-blank. I know that it rains cats and dogs on occasion but correct me if I'm wrong, here. It appears to be raining crows."

As expected wildlife people are working on finding some reason for them to do so. Maybe they all spotted the same piece of road kill and miscalculated its mass appeal. I mean, it's as good a reason as any but I digress.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission who is in charge of these things, commented that dead black bird reports started filtering in at 11:30 p.m. over a one mile area. An aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found in that area. This makes sense since any birds spotting falling or already dead crows would stay out of the area.

Ornithologist Karen Rowe said the birds showed physical trauma, and she speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail."

Another theory floating around is that New Year's Eve revelers shooting off fireworks in the area could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress.

Wildlife officer, Robby King, collected approximately 65 dead birds that will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wis. In the end and according to Ms Rowe, she believes the tests will be 'inconclusive' and doubted that the birds were poisoned.

There's a very simple explanation. Aliens. The same one's that made those intricate corn field designs. Merely a simple case of flying in the wrong direction. This is a Stephen King novel waiting to be written. Wait a minute - hasn't he written a book about this?